For perpetuating the family-line and offering panda (a ball or lump of boiled rice) to the dead ancestors at obsequies ceremonies or Shraddha and - a son is necessary According to Hindu belief a man is born with three debts- rina trayaee i.e. Devarina, ‘debts to the deities’ , Rishirina ‘debts to the Rishis, the seers, sages and Pitririna, ‘debt to the ‘dead ancestors; The first of these can be discharged by performing Yajna, i.e. sacrifices, worship and prayers to gods and charities. The second is discharged by study and teaching and the third by procreating children to perpetuate the family line. Among the children a son was considered necessary.
Manu, Yajnavalkya, Devala etc. who are main lawgivers have recognized as many as twelve kinds of sons.
1.Aurasa : Literally one produced by the breast i.e. fathered by husband in his duly married wife.
2.Putrikaputra : Putrika in the traditional Hindu Law books ha been used as a technical word for a girl who has no brother. In the absence of an aurasa son, the father treated his daughter as a son. Alternatively a son born in that daughter was also called Putrikaputra. Daughter’s son who by agreement or adoption becomes son of her father.
3. Kshetraja : Born in the field(of the husband). The wife has been treated as the field and a son born to her under abnormal circumstances viz, when the husband was incapable or dead, was called a Kshetraja. This practice was also called niyoga i.e. by appointment. Some conditions for niyoga were laid down. The foremost condition was that the wife must not have a living son at the time of niyoga and the appointed person to father should be the younger brother of the husband or any person equally placed in the fathers family or a Brahamana.
The Pandavas were Kshetraja sons of Pandu; Dhritarashtra and Pandu were themselves niyoja sons of Vichitravirya and were fathered by Vyasa by appointment in his wives namely, Ambalika and Ambika respectively.
4. Dattaka – Gifted, donated : In the absence of a real i.e Aurasa son, a male child gifted by his parents could be adopted to continue the line of the father. There were strict rules for adoption. The guiding principle was that the son so adopted must be the true image of the father. Hence a child being adopted must be born to a woman who was eligible to be the wife of the adoptive father. For example a sister’s son could not be adopted because marriage between brothers and sisters was forbidden under the Hindu Law. It has been laid down that the only son can not be given and adopted as it will result in the failure of spiritual benefit to the natural father. Similarly the eldest son also could not be adopted.
Also one and the same child could not be adopted by two or more persons. According to Hindu law certain ceremonies were also required for a valid adoption. However, by a special legislation all restrictions on adoption have now been removed and a Hindu can adopt any person, male or female without any distinction of caste or blood relation.
5. Kritrima : An artificial son. A child treated and brought up as a son without any formal rites.
6. Gudhaja : A son secretly born to the wife without her husband’s knowledge.
7. Apaviddha – thrown away : Apaviddha means rejected
- A child cast away or abandoned by the natural parents on his
birth and taken by some person as his son. Such a child could inherit the property of the man who brought him up, but ancestors of the person who took and brought him up would not accept pinda offered by him.
8. Kanina : A son of a maiden. He was deemed to be the son of the girl who married her.
A typical example of a kanina son is Karna, the famous hero of the epic Mahabharata. He was the son of Kunti and fathered by Surya, the Sun God. Kunti had abandoned him on his birth she was subsequently married to Pandu and gave birth to Yudhishthira, Bhima and Arjuna and became sons of Pandu and known as Pandavs. Karna would have inherited the throne of Hastinapur after the death of Pandu being his eldest son as per Hindu law, but the union was kept secret by Kunti and she revealed the truth only after the death of Karna. Yudhisthira cursed his mother Kunti for keeping this secret to her chest, so that a brother namely Arjuna unknowingly killed his own elder brother Karna.
9. Sahodha : A son is brought with the marriage, if a woman was pregnant at the time of her marriage, the son born to her after her marriage was deemed to be the son of the man who married her.
10. Krita : A purchased son.
11. Paunarbhava
The son of a virgin widow. She after her marriage became a ‘Punarbhu married second time’ such marriages were permitted when the husband died before consummation of the marriage. Widow marriage was the custom which still continues in many castes. Divorce and widow marriages were freely allowed in these castes. The law givers only extended the recognition to sons born to such women by their previous husbands.
12. Svayamdatta,
‘Self Offered son’ -When an orphaned boy went to some person and offered himself to be his son and the latter accepted his offer, the boy in such a case was called Svayamdatta .
Inclusion of so many types of sons, particularly the kanina, the son of a maiden; gudhaja , a son secretly born and sahodha has been criticized by some western authors who said that the Hindu society in ancient times was lacking in morals and that they were indifferent to sexual purity by recongising them as sons. But this is not a correct view. Hindus have maintained very high standard of morality in all ages. Virginity in the case of women has been over emphasized by the Hindu society and sexual laxity has been condemned in most unfailing terms and very harsh punishment has been prescribed for adultery and offences. But the Hindu society was not so harsh to the children born out of wedlock or even in wedlock. It was with a view to fix up responsibility for upbringing of such children that the Hindu legislators have taken a lenient view in such cases and have made provision for welfare of such unfortunate children.
Hindu Society has a very long history spreading over several millennia. It is an amalgamation of numerous tribes and castes who had their own customs and manners and they were at different stages of civilization and did not have standard uniform practices in matters pertaining to social conduct and sexual morality. Hindu legislators have only given recognition and legislative cover to meet their varying requirements Customs of marriage and inheritance has been given legal cover by incorporating them in the Smritis and digests – Books of Hindu Law.
Explaining the grounds for recognition of so many types of sons P. N. Sen ancient jurist had said “According to the ancient concept of family relationships among the Aryans , a child must be under patria proticta of some individuals and this was confined to the case of a legitimate child born in lawful wife by her husband. The question therefore arose: how in any other case should it be determined as to who was the person under whose patria proticta a particular child stood? The answer to the question was furnished by enumeration of subsidiary sons.”
Of these twelve, the first i.e. Asura was called primary son and the rest as secondary sons.